Ok, so I'm stepping lightly into the territory of Ethan/Giles. I'm not sure how well I did. Please feel free to lend constructive criticism. I am very nervous of posting this. We're talking shaking, a little teary, and genuinely afraid of how it'll be received. Anyway, here it is.

Title: The Forgotten Fire of Other Days
Rating: Oh, lordy! NC-17
Pairing: Giles/Ethan (yeah. You read that right. New pairing for me!)
Summary: Giles and Ethan in “Brand New Man” They leave the bar, but together, and umm, screw canon!
Disclaimer: I do not own these guys. They belong to their creator Joss. Dammit.
Feedback: Definitely for this. I’m not very confident writing Giles, and I’ve NEVER written Ethan before. Please, those of you who do these guys justice, let me know where I can improve. This is unbeta’d, as I wanted to just get it out there.

A/N: rayne_y_daze? This is for you. Why? Because I was reading your journal, and - they say emulation is the greatest form of flattery - well, I wanted to be like you. You inspired this and if it sucks, I apologize.



The beer was warm on his tongue, bitter on the lips he was kissing. His fingers shook with nervousness; he hadn’t been here in a very long time, but the territory was so familiar, still.

He looked into eyes that were still so young, mischievous. Or had they been old then. He blinked. No. They were the same, neither old nor young. He felt the buttons slide through their holes as his fingers gained their usual confidence. He had a feeling that he would not be the one in charge of this encounter. So long gone from these moments. But Ethan was not so far removed.

Ethan stared at him, a knowing look in his chilling eyes. This was not a renewal of the past, but remuneration for wrongs done, for sins committed, for friendship left stranded and abandoned. Giles knew it. He folded his knees, wincing when his right knee popped. Damned Angelus. I am not so old, I dare say. He refused to look into Ethan’s face, knowing the youth that was retained there would only mock his agedness. He was not so old in years, but the injuries suffered fighting the things of this world he used to call on for fun had damaged him. He could not bear to see pity in this man’s eyes.

He felt a firm hand on his chin and was forced to look up. Ethan’s smiling face was not pitying, nor mocking, but understanding. He held that gaze for an interminable moment, then breathed deep when the lithe body before him broke its plane of length and sank to a level with his own.

“Ethan.” He spoke a whisper, not knowing what was in store.

“Ripper. Old times are always forgotten, aren’t they, old friend?”

“I...I’m not sure what you want.”

“What I had is what I want. You’ve always been the force of my life, Ripper. What makes now any different?”

“I don’t know if I can be what I was once, I’m not that young, nor that brash anymore.” Giles could only speak the truth in this moment, when his hands slid the rich cotton off Ethan’s shoulders, revealing the pale skin beneath. He leaned in to taste that delicate flesh.

“Seems to me you’re doing a quite fine job of it, right now.” Ethan’s head rolled back, as though savoring the feel of Giles’ lips on his skin.

“I’m doing what I remember. There’s a large part of me that remembers, Ethan, and aches. For this.” He pushed the slender man back, waiting as older bones readjusted themselves and Ethan was flat on the floor, legs on either side of Giles’. “For this.” He leaned over and laid moist kisses on Ethan’s stomach, riding the flesh as it rose with every breath that was coming faster and faster. “For this.” He lifted Ethan’s hand to his chest, encouraging the fingers to flex and dig in. “For this.” He kissed Ethan, teeth biting on his lower lip, tongue seeking entrance to a mouth flavored with beer and scotch. With the past. With what he used to know as love.

He felt hot hands under his shirt, pushing the wool up and over his shoulders, so he flexed up and lifted his arms, eyes on Ethan’s as he, too, rose, and pulled the sweater up and over and off, and ran those hot hands of his down Giles’ skin, digging into scars and scratching new paths of feeling. Giles hissed a breath when Ethan leaned forward and traced a particularly nasty scar, courtesy of Angelus’ torture, with his tongue and lips.

“And tomorrow, Ripper?” He felt Ethan’s lips moving on his skin and barely made out what was asked.

“Tomorrow doesn’t exist, yet, Ethan. Do not borrow trouble, friend.” He carded his fingers through black hair that was salted with silver, and breathed in the scent of thyme. “You’ve changed shampoo. Thyme?”

“You as well, Ripper. You used to smell of patchouli and the richest sage.” Ethan tasted him, tongue light and moist on his skin. “Now, you taste of mint and chamomile. We are not as we were, I’m guessing. Do you think we can do as we did? Will you take me as you used to? Will you be hard, dangerous, as you used to be? Or is that man gone?” The last asked as teeth punished a hard nipple.

Giles fisted fingers in Ethan’s hair and said, “You talk too much, Ethan. Dammit, but you always did.” He kissed him, “I know how to shut you up. Still.” Then another kiss, hard, unyielding. Thought of tenderness fled them both, and Giles pushed Ethan to the floor, rubbing his hard, denim encased cock alongside Ethan’s. The body beneath him arched into the movement, and Giles groaned. “Are we going to stay here on the floor?”

“Hell yes. We’re going to stay here; you’re going to fuck me, and I am going to enjoy it and so are you. I’ve been waiting for this... for so long.” Ethan’s voice was desperate with desire and anger and anticipation. His fingers rushed through unbuttoning and unzipping Gile’s jeans, and snatching them down over his hips. Giles laughed at the slender fingers digging into his flesh; he laughed and leaned down to kiss Ethan again. Balancing himself on one arm, he worked at the fastenings of Ethan’s trousers, and freed his straining cock. He clasped the hot flesh in his hand, squeezing and pumping up and down. His fingers feeling the pulse of life there. His mouth longed to taste the saltiness of it, and he slid down Ethan’s body.

“Ripper, please.” The whispered words, the long abandoned name, the breathy sigh after all of it had Giles stunned. He flicked out his tongue, tasting the almost clear fluid that had welled up on the tip of Ethan’s erection. Familiar, again. Reminiscent of ages past, of similar nights on colder floors, with the rain falling outside, and the incense burning and the smell of burnt sage filtering through the air.

Giles was powerless against those memories and sank his mouth all the way down, wanting to devour the memories and the taste. Ethan’s hands on his head, directing him, moving him, not letting him up. Ethan’s taste and smell swirling in his head until all he could sense was him and the body beneath him, no prickly rug, no hard tile floor, just his heated skin and the liquid feel of Ethan sliding down his throat.

He swallowed around the cock in his mouth, nearly pulling off to laugh at the answering shout of ecstacy that resulted. He pressed his tongue against Ethan’s shaft, massaging him and sucking him at the same time. Ethan’s fingernails carved halfmoons into his scalp and he groaned at the welcomed pain.

He’d forgotten that pain was always a part of their pleasure. The reminder was sharp and relished. He pulled back, lifting his mouth off Ethan’s glistening cock and smiled. “I’d forgotten how you tasted.” He wrapped thick, callus roughened fingers around Ethan’s balls and squeezed them gently, grinning when the flushed and swollen flesh before him responded with a quick flex forward. He leaned down to kiss it again, and rolled the softer flesh in his palm. “Forgot how responsive you could be, too.”

“Are you going to...?”

“Hush, Ethan. You know I’d never leave you unsatisfied.”

“I knew you never would, because it meant you would be as well. I don’t know anything about you anymore, Rupert.”

“True.” Giles turned blazing green eyes to the man he’d almost forgotten. His hands slid down the length of Ethan’s legs, pulling the man’s trousers down and off over surprisingly delicate feet. He kissed the tops of those feet, then the ankles.

“Ripper, you’re beginning to act very much like a woman down there. Do hurry.”

“Shut up, Ethan. It’s been twenty odd years, you git. Let me remember you.” He tasted the skin covering the hardness of Ethan’s knees, kneaded the flesh of his thighs, touched every inch of skin that he used to know by heart. Remembered biting this calf, drawing up blood to bruise. His tongue touched the sensitive ticklish spot on the inside of Ethan’s knee and he was rewarded with that light giggle that used to burn him alive from the inside out. It still did. His guts used to flare in heated desire when the music of Ethan’s laughter rang out during sex. They still did.

His exploration of Ethan ended when he was in the hollow where thigh met groin. He bit lightly at the tendon that was flexed there, straining beneath the skin. “Yes. There.” Whispered words urged him forward, again engulfing the straining erection and swallowing it down. Riding the heaving breaths Ethan took, suckling on the sensitive flesh, Giles wrapped his arms around Ethan’s thighs and lifted them, giving himself leverage in his task.

Ethan’s hands buried themselves in his hair and he felt himself pulled and pushed, as Ethan thrust into his warm welcoming mouth. He knew Ethan was close, the thrusts becoming irregular, harder and deeper into his throat. He moaned, begging for the release he knew was coming, wanting to swallow Ethan down, to memorize his taste, to remember why it was that he loved this man. He swallowed hard around the head of the cock in his throat and moaned at the strain in his muscles. Immediately, he was gifted with the salty, slick, sea taste that he thought he’d forgotten. He swallowed rapidly, not wanting to lose any of it, not wanting to let any bit of Ethan get away from him this time.

Ethan collapsed back onto the floor, the sweat on his skin squelching on the cool tile. “Rupert.”

Giles kissed his way to Ethan’s mouth, swallowing his own name on a deep and carnal kiss. “You still taste like the ocean, Ethan.”

Ethan wrapped his legs around Giles’ waist. “Still long to feel you buried in me, Ripper.”

Giles laughed. “Haven’t you had enough for one night, old friend?”

“Have you?” Ethan countered.

Giles stopped laughing. “I don’t think, now that you’re here again, I’ll ever have enough of you, Ethan. I’d not realized how much I’d missed you. Missed us.”

“And? Twenty years is a long time to catch up on, Ripper.”

“It seems I may have my work cut out for me then, don’t you think?”

Ethan heaved a shrug. “Only if you so desire. I’ve been without you this long, I think I can have a go at another twenty years. I’m quite certain you aren’t the end all be all of my existence.” Ethan’s words were sharp. Giles knew, then, he’d never be able to atone for time lost or love abandoned.

“I’m sorry, Ethan. Nothing will ever make us right. No matter how much I want to, and believe me I do, the time is just too much. If you want me, still, then you’ll - no, we’ll - have to agree to start from here. The past is too far gone, don’t you think?”

“What I think, Ripper, is that I’m lying on a cold floor, naked with someone who doesn’t want me anymore. If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just go.” Ethan pushed Giles off of him, and moved to stand, taking up his clothes as he did so.

Giles stopped him with a hand on his thigh. He looked up into cool brown eyes and sighed. “If that’s what you really want, I shan’t stop you. But,” he paused, and Ethan raised an eyebrow.

“But what, old friend?” He asked, and Giles winced at the sarcasm.

“But, I’d like you to stay. I’d like to try to make up lost time with you.” He let his hand fall in a casual caress down Ethan’s thigh. “I want you too much to give you up again, you see. I’m weak now. The bluster and rage of youth is pointless to me, and I wish to cling to what I still can. You’re what I’ve always wanted, and it kills me a little more everyday that I let that slide away from me.” He removed his hand from Ethan’s skin and collected his clothing. Standing, he started to get dressed. “I’ve missed you and it took you coming here, drinking with me, laying here on this cold floor with me to make me realize that.”

Ethan watched him as he turned his back; he could feel the burning gaze like a fire on his skin. “I don’t want to change you; I don’t want to recruit you. Hell, I won’t even try to hide you.” He turned around again. “But dammit, you have to want to stay; I can’t force you.” He zipped his jeans. “So. What is it going to be?”

Ethan walked over to him, lifted a hand and rested in on the back of Giles’ neck. “You, Ripper, are the one who always talked too much.” Then he kissed him.

The End

And there you have my first ever G/E fic. Be harsh, let me know what you think. And should I post it elsewhere?

ETA: And wow! My first ever G/E fic and someone nom'd it at the Bodice Ripper Awards. You guys...*sniff*